Notes From the Rafters: 14 September 2020
How is the democratic process supposed to work? If we’re cavalier about limiting offline public engagement, we risk de-prioritizing full and fair democracy.
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Notes From the Rafters: Pandora’s Big Yellow Box
Get your most outraged social media warrior face on: you have TWO WEEKS to ALL CAPS your way into Council inboxes to explain why you are pro or con the BYB.
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Notes from the Rafters: 13 April 2020
They have added video. Each councillor now comes to the meeting framed by a hastily curated slice of their natural environment.
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Notes From the Rafters: ReduxPlagueTimes (RPT)
Let’s mentally splatter-paint our way through some kind of understanding of what is happening in our city’s bi-weekly teleconferences and see how we do!
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Walking St. John’s After the Blizzard of the Century
The whole city glistened, alabaster white and silent except for the cheerful calls of people greeting each other as they snowshoed and skied around the neighbourhood, and the louder shouts of younger more daring citizens snowboarding down Holloway Street on what Drew Brown called “the island’s sickest ski jump.”1 For three days our neighbourhoods turned back into communities, people had time for each other and, well, a lot of people had a lot of fun. And then the cars were allowed back on the roads. Obviously, people had to get food and medical supplies and they had to get back to work. The nurses who did forty-hour shifts and the hotel workers who stayed on for days to look after people from out of town had to get home. Not every neighbourhood has a food store in walking distance and not everybody can walk even if theirs does. But that…
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Unmasking Donny Dooley: Newfoundland’s Most Wanted Troll
For years, an anonymous Twitter account mocked accident victims, berated grieving parents, and terrorized women. Today the Independent removes his mask.
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Sex Work is Not the Same as Sexual Exploitation
As someone who has worked freely as a sex worker and someone who has experienced sexual exploitation, I can say unequivocally: the two are not the same.
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Memorial Students Rejected a Bad Proposal, Not a U-Pass Program
If you’re disappointed with the results of the recent U-Pass student vote at Memorial, don’t be disappointed with the students. It’s good news that 51% of eligible voters participated, and it means that 71% of those students voting “No” is a clear rejection of the proposal by the student body. However, this vote can only tell us how students felt about this proposal. It does not tell us how students feel about a U-Pass in general. Students did not support the specific U-Pass program proposed by Memorial University, Metrobus, and the City of St. John’s because of ineffective communication, inappropriate pricing, and inadequate scope to address the core transit issue: that all true growth opportunities for Metrobus ridership lie outside the current service area. Metrobus and the City have been thinking about U-Pass programs as a means of improving public transit since at least 2011. One of the recommendations in…
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“We’re working as if this is our time”: Sharpe
Young candidates focus on social justice, climate change and democratic reform, offering voters a new path in building a healthy and sustainable city.
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Why won’t the Province pay up?
“As the capital city, St. John’s hosts a big proportion of our most important provincial facilities, but the province has chosen to pass the disproportionate tax burden of the associated services directly onto city taxpayers.”
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Time to close the wage gap
Women in Newfoundland and Labrador are more likely to be university educated and substantially more employed than men in the province, yet face higher rates of poverty and lower rates of pay.
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“Don’t be Trashy”: Unpacking St. John’s new recycling campaign
The City’s latest effort to encourage recycling reveals deeper issues with the way women are engaged in municipal politics and programming.
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God Help Us
Flying a flag should be a statement, not a policy.
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Anglican Church’s flag on government buildings galling and hypocritical
“Considering the Anglican Church’s history of endorsing religious violence and its ongoing role in the suppression of gay rights, I believe it’s wrong for our secular governments to align themselves with this organization.”
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More protests planned as City responds to budget backlash
City of St. John’s finance committee chair says council will consider taking grant money from other sectors to reinstate its arts investment, but residents say that’s not good enough.
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“Please, Mr. O’Keefe, Mr. Galgay, and your other sleeping friends: Resign.”
Former Great Big Sea member and small business owner Bob Hallett says homeowners and business owners in St. John’s feel “abused and neglected” in the wake of city council’s municipal budget. He is calling for the mayor and councillors’ resignation.
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The State of the Arts: Fight or Flight?
The City of St. John’s recent handling of a public art installation and council’s arbitrary budget cuts to arts funding have spurred major resistance from artists in Canada’s most colourful and creative city. Some say decision-makers’ disregard for the arts could prompt artists to leave Newfoundland altogether.
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City of St. John’s buries environment, again
It was only a few years ago we discovered St. John’s City Council had ‘forgotten’ it’s own mandate to have an Environmental Advisory Committee (EAC) — a handy vehicle that was brought back to ensure important environmental issues were properly considered and addressed.
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Bike Lanes: Déjà-vu all over again
As municipalities across the country try to encourage active transportation, why does it still feel like bicycles are Public Enemy #1 in St. John’s? Robin Whitaker reflects on the latest attempt of some city councillors to weaken our barely-existent bicycle infrastructure.
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“When we can bicycle, bicycle”
Cycling is good for our health, the environment, the economy, and all the cool kids are doing it. So why the hold up in making St. John’s a bike-friendly city?
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